Wishful Thinking
by Tempo
Summary: Annie takes Auggie on an impromptu road trip, unaware of just how much their lives will change when they reach their destination. What do you do when your wildest dream comes true?
1. Chapter 1

The knocking became more persistent, and finally roused Auggie from his troubled sleep on the uncomfortable couch of his metropolitan apartment. He fumbled around for a moment, found the remote control, and silenced the infomercial for the latest cleaning product that was supposed to change your life.

"I'm coming! Jesus..."

He nearly fell over the coffee table in his early morning delirium, but eventually made it to the door unscathed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he felt for the lock.

"What in the world could you possibly..." The door swung open, and he caught the tell-tale whiff of perfume. "Annie?"

"Good morning, sunshine," she said, speaking in the flirty drawl she'd used when pretending to be from the _Gold Circle Club._ "You're going to need two changes of clothes and your toothbrush. Get packing."

"Annie, it's..." He touched his watch, and it spoke for him, "_five thirty-three AM._"

"Yes, it is, and if you're not packed by five forty AM, I'm going to pack _for_ you." She pushed lightly past him and walked into his living room, not caring to wait for him to wake up enough to invite her in.

"Hey, there, bossy. Care to give me any details?"

"Oh! Right. Casual clothes are fine, wear something you don't mind getting wet, and bring something to sleep in."

"Not what I meant."

"Well, it's all you're going to get. Now, are you going to get moving, or would you like me to follow through with my threat?" Grinning, she took another step towards his bedroom, but stopped when he sighed and called out to her.

"No way. I may trust you with my life, but I do not yet trust you with my wardrobe. Excuse me."

* * *

He packed with impressive speed, and once Annie had successfully pestered him into her car, he returned the favor with incessant questions about his kidnapping.

"Auggie, you'll know where we're going when we get there, we'll get there when we get there, and we're going there because I don't want to waste this perfectly good weekend. Now please, just relax and pick a radio station." She took his hand and placed it on the stereo dial.

"Look at you, being all assertive. The agency has certainly rubbed off on you," he quipped. She smiled a devious smile, and with that, the interrogation was over, and the mysterious road trip had begun.


	2. Chapter 2

"...Auggie..." She shook him lightly. "..._Auggie_..." And again. "...Auggie!"

"Hmnh!" He twitched and sat up straight, inhaling deeply. "I'm up. What is it? What's wrong?" Annie giggled and smoothed his hair.

"We're here."

* * *

The salt air assaulted his senses, and he could hear the rustling of winds through tall grass over the slightly more distant thunder of waves breaking upon land.

"You brought me to the beach?" He asked, as she led him away from the car. She squeezed his hand and waited nervously, trying to judge his reaction, but his face betrayed nothing.

"I, uh, I wanted to do something with you that you could enjoy just as much as I could, if not more, and I've always found that the beach was more of a place to feel and listen than to see. Let me have your shoes." He obediently toed off his loafers, and a smile broke out across his face as his feet sank slightly into the loose sand.

"I can't tell you how long it's been since I've gotten to do this," he said as he wiggled his toes around, letting the tiny rocks roll over and around his feet. "Thank you, Annie."

"I figured I owed you one. Probably more than one, as many times as you've covered for me at the office." The relief was evident in her voice, and her words took on a teasing lilt as she relaxed.

"You owe me nothing." He rolled up his pants, slipped his hand into hers, and together they set off for the water's edge.

* * *

They took their time exploring the beach in the fresh morning air. Auggie reveled in the feeling of the water washing around his ankles, the sand between his toes, and the sun on his face, and Annie searched for a few interesting seashells to take back to her nieces. It was just past lunchtime when he heard a noise that caught his attention, thundering from somewhere beyond the seagulls and ocean tides.

"Annie... are those... horses?" She turned to look, and saw five of the island's famous wild horses cantering down the shore towards them.

"Yes! Oh, Auggie, they're beautiful," she sighed.

"Describe them to me." She hesitated for a second, not wanting to ruin the perfect day by rubbing in the fact that he couldn't see the same sight she could, but he looked honestly curious.

"Four of them are chestnut—three of which have white blazes on their faces, and the fifth... uh... the fifth is coming this way, actually. Auggie, don't move." Annie watched as the fifth horse, an almost purely white mare, broke away from its small herd, and trotted straight towards Auggie. She stopped only a few feet away, and seemed to size him up.

"...Annie."

"Shh. She's just looking at you."

A few moments later, the mare snorted, and Auggie slowly extended his hand out toward the sound. The mare gingerly approached him, stretching out her nose so that only the soft tip grazed his fingers. Once she seemed satisfied that he wasn't a threat, she stepped forward once more, and Annie stood, bewildered, as the horse allowed the blind man to run his hands down her, feeling the height of her back, the length of her mane, and the shape of her ears, all without flinching.

Then, the mare seemed to have had enough. She nudged Auggie's head with her nose, letting out a breath that slightly mussed his hair, and took a step back before galloping off to rejoin the other four horses.

The pair stood, unmoving, as Auggie patted his hair flat again.

"Like I said, the ladies love a blind man," he said softly, breaking the magical silence. Annie laughed and swatted him on the shoulder.

"Alright, Casanova, come on. Let's go lay claim to a campsite."

* * *

The sun had set in a dazzling array of reds, pinks, and purples, and the crickets and cicadas had begun their nightly chirping. Annie, feeling sun-soaked and relaxed, stretched out on a beach towel and stared up at the endless expanse of stars above them, sinking into the peace of the night.

A green light swept across her, and was soon followed by her best friend. Auggie sat down, put his cane in his pocket, and gently nudged her.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Keep your penny, you probably already know what I'm thinking. You almost always do." Only quiet followed, and she eventually fell for the interrogation tactic, compelled to fill the silence. "I'm just wondering what I would have done, living a normal life like everyone else I've seen on the beach today. Families out for a getaway with their kids, people birdwatching, people playing in the water; they don't have to lie to everyone around them, pretending to be someone they're not, day after day. I mean," she said quickly, "don't get me wrong, I don't regret joining the agency, but I just... wonder... what my life could have been. You know?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I know." He moved to lie beside her on the blanket, unseeing eyes turned toward the night sky. "I wonder all the time what would have happened if I'd left that damned dog alone. I..."

Suddenly, she gasped, and sat up straight.

"Annie? What's wrong?" Auggie said, sitting up and feeling for her hand.

"A shooting star," she whispered. "I've never seen one before." He heard her turn to face him, and he mirrored her movement, bringing them face-to-face. "Make a wish."

"You saw it, not me. It's your wish."

"I want you to have it. Now, do it. I don't know if there is a time limit on these things, and it would be a shame to waste it."

He took a deep breath, and reached one hand out, finding her shoulder. Slowly, he moved his hand up to cup her face, and then up to feel her hairline, and then down to tangle in her hair at the nape of her neck.

His thumb traced her ear as he said, quietly, "I wish I could see you. For just one day, Annie, I wish I could see you."

His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he pulled her closer, touching his forehead to hers, and listening to her shallow breathing. Butterflies raged in his stomach when he felt her small hands at the sides of his face, and he couldn't control himself any longer when he heard her softly breathe his name—he closed the small distance between them, and caught her lips in a searing kiss.

He had always heard people describe moments like this as time-stopping, gravity-altering, and occasionally life-changing, but he had never truly understood what they meant until the moment he kissed Annie Walker. Every one of his working senses was in overdrive, and he could have sworn he felt the earth shift under them.

Encouraged by the way she was returning his kisses (and holding onto him like her life depended on it), he slipped a hand around her back and gently laid her down on the towel, pressing his body into hers.

The minutes flew by, the couple oblivious to everything around them, until finally Auggie pulled away, laid back beside Annie, and pulled her close, tucking her head under his chin and allowing her to wrap her arms around him. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he didn't dare speak, lest he break the spell that had enveloped them. He waited, and when she didn't make a move to say anything either, he let out the breath he'd been holding, closed his eyes, and together they drifted off to sleep under the stars.

* * *

Auggie woke to warm breath on his face and the gentle pressure of something soft against his cheek.

"Annie…" he whispered, but when he opened his eyes, his heart stopped.

He was looking directly into the face of a large, white horse. His eyes hurt, and everything seemed excessively bright, but once he began to adjust to the glare, he knew that this was the same horse he had touched the previous afternoon.

The mare bobbed her head, grunted softly, turned, and cantered away.

And Auggie _watched_ her go.

He watched her hooves kick up sand with every step, watched her mane blow in the wind, watched her muscles ripple under her skin.

And he would never admit it if anyone asked him later, but at that moment, Auggie Anderson quietly began to cry.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Hello, my lovely readers. Sorry for the long wait on this, but I'm taking my time because I want to do it right. (Or, at least, as right as I possibly can, being a writer who is seriously out of practice.) The awesome anon who left a review on Chapter 2 a couple of days ago wisely pointed out that this story is the first of its kind here in the Covert Affairs archive, and I really, really don't want to screw it up. (On that note, please let me know if I AM screwing it up, or, even better, if I'm not.)

So having said that, I'm sure this chapter is totally going to be a tease, and I'm working on getting the next part to you as soon as I can (while I also move into a new apartment).

* * *

_Breathe._

Auggie wiped his eyes, and reminded himself once more: _breathe._

Nothing could have prepared him for the colors—his body had almost forgotten how to see them—and the light of the sunrise was almost his undoing. For the first time in years, his sunglasses were doing the job they were made for, instead of simply masking his unfocused, useless eyes from the scrutiny of the judgmental public.

The colorful light dissolved into a blue morning sky as he stared, until he was pulled sharply out of his awe-struck reverie by a sudden movement of the sleeping woman lying just behind him.

_Breathe._

This was it.

It had been easy to make the wish, easy to think that the one thing in the world he wanted most was to see her, but he never thought in a million lifetimes that it would happen. This was so much more complicated than he could have dreamed.

He couldn't help but think of all the times he had seen a movie adaptation of a book he had read, and had never been able to separate the actors from the characters from that moment on. Tyler Durden will forever look like Brad Pitt, whether he likes it or not, and although that had been a particularly fantastic casting choice (in his humble opinion), the point was that he had grown sort of attached to his mental image of Annie Walker.

What if he didn't like what he saw?

_Impossible,_ he thought, but he couldn't make himself believe it. Sure, she was his best friend, his metaphorical light in the dark, and he cared very much about her, but he was human, and he didn't trust his inner caveman one bit. His joke about ladies loving a blind man came from truth, but it wasn't the whole truth. The fact was that the ladies loved Auggie even more before his accident, and he hadn't done much to fight against the stereotype of the shallow male. His accident had been a wake-up call. He had taken advantage of far too many women, and the universe told him that he had done far too much looking and not nearly enough listening. It was his ultimate karmic backlash.

He adapted, he learned to live without his sight, and, along the way, he realized what kind of a person he had been. So he took the hint, and he listened. He heard how injuries caused imbalanced movement, how stress and emotion altered a person's voice, and when nerves made a person very subtly fidget. Whenever he met a woman, he didn't see her body—he heard her life, and it changed him.

He had been whittled down to the best-ever version of himself when he lost his vision, and he hoped to the heavens above that it wasn't all about to be undone.

_Breathe._

_This is it. _

_Three, two, one._

Auggie turned, slowly, and took in the sight of her small form curled on its side, facing away from him. He already had a good idea of her figure from their time in the gym (and the surprising turn their relationship had taken just the night before), so he focused on the information that was new to him. Her hair.

Honey blonde with some light flaxen highlights, just beginning to shimmer as the dawn grew lighter. Layered, with a slight curl to it. Fine strands, but a good amount of it. He wondered if it was as soft as it looked.

No sooner had his fingers threaded in the ends of her loose hair than the object of his scrutiny began to stir, stretching her arms out in front of her, then over her head, and then back to the ground as she rolled herself over towards him, squinting against the morning sunshine.

He felt like he couldn't breathe. She wasn't at all what he had imagined.

She was so much more.


End file.
